43 thoughts on “More Intentional Walk Talk”

That is simply nonsense. No one would ever allow that…. Hey, did you see the NBA game last night? The last minute and a half took 20 minutes to play and they shot 15 free throws. I was on the edge of my seat.

I’m just being silly. I hate the intentional walk as much as Joe, and I’m not a fan of the intentional foul, either. I don’t blame managers/coaches/players for using them, of course, I blame the fans for not demanding better game rules.

I am indifferent to the intentional walk, but I don’t watch basketball because of the intentional foul. It seems anti sport to intentionally break the rules in sight of the referee in order to gain an advantage. You should never get an advantage from getting caught breaking the rules.

I am a Cleveland fan hoping to see an eventual champ, but I’ve probably only watched 15 minutes of Lebron’s entire career.

“I don’t know why anyone would throw a strike to Bryce Harper for the rest of the season.” I so hope this is the game’s slogan. I would giggle every time I heard it. Maybe they could have famous people saying it and then cut it together like they do openings of playoff and World Series games.

Not seeing how this argument backs up anything here. By hacking Shaq instead of the good shooter with the ball, you are eluding that other player’s strength. And in this case, you are preying on the next batter’s weakness compared to Harper. In both cases, you are taking advantage of the rules to avoid the better player.

I don’t love the intentional walk but it is a strategy within the rules. And good teams have to figure out how to beat this strategy if it is used against them. Until the rules change, managers will continue to use it until you have a player that can make them pay.

Football teams do this all the time and no one complains. Quarterbacks attacked weaker corners rather than throw at Deion Sanders. Kickoff teams kick away from great return men—especially once they’ve been burned in that game. Heck, defenses double or even triple team elite receivers to prevent passes from going to them. I never see anyone say that squib kicks need to be taken out of the rules

One potential option is to pay close attention to where the pitch is thrown and if they’re out of the batter’s box, call it a balk. It seems to happen frequently and would be a major deterrent if pitchers started to balk-in runs. That being said, good pitchers would likely be able to split the difference and we’d be back at square one.

I think you are referring to a catcher’s balk. Technically, the catcher is not permitted to leave the catcher’s box until the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand. I have watched and played in countless games over the past 54 years and have never seen it called. It could make the IBB more interesting, especially when the pitcher’s control is a bit off (like Rick Ankiel.)

I think Joe Maddon is the best manager in baseball, but nobody loves the intentional walk more than he does. He achieved notoriety by intentionally walking Josh Hamilton with the bases loaded, which is the type of stunt that can win you the battle but lose you the war. Sure you won the game, but how many fans did you turn off by using that cheap ploy? Why would anyone want to watch a game in which the best players never get to perform in a meaningful situation? Maddon could care less that he’s killing the sport by pitching around the game’s best hitter even with the game’s best pitcher on the mound, he got the W, and that’s all that matters.

I think that making a 4 pitch walk worth 2 bases is an intriguing solution. You don’t want a walk to be too appealing, otherwise you’ll have hitters trying to work a walk every time up, but if you force pitchers to throw one hittable pitch per at bat or face a two-base penalty, I think that’s a fair trade. So how do we make it happen?

First, I know that MLB would like to forget Barry Bonds, but take a look at his walk totals. Bryce Harper isn’t the first, and Joe Maddon isn’t the Tom Edison of this problem.

Second, we could always go with the method that Don Drysdale supposedly used. The story is that Walt Alston signaled that he should walk Frank Robinson intentionally. Drysdale told John Roseboro to get in his crouch and went through the signs until Roseboro flashed the knockdown, Drysdale nodded, his F. Robby in the ribs, and prompted Alston to run to the mound. Drysdale’s reasoning? “Why waste four pitches?”

Finally, if Bryce Harper keeps yelling obscenities at umpires who have ejected him for being a jerk, he may not have many more at-bats anyway.

I don’t have a problem with the intentional walk. I’m a Nats fan but it was the Nats job (ie, Zimmerman) to make the strategy sub-optimal. He did not. My problem with the Hack-a-Shaq in basketball is not the idea of it but the effect on the flow of the game. A professional basketball player should be able to make free throws and, if he can’t, why not foul him. It’s like saying, in tennis, this player’s backhand is weak, so I’m going to hit to his/her backhand all the time. But, in the context of a basketball game, the strategy disrupts the flow of the game because it stops a after every foul. In baseball, walks happen anyway and it doesn’t really slow the game down any more than it already is. I have no issue with it if it works. If Zimmerman had hit a home run, no one would be saying Maddon is a genius.

I’m not a baseball purist, but I think changing the IBB rule would be like trying to outlaw the shift. I just don’t see the sense. If the team isn’t good enough to make the other team pay for the strategy, that’s their tough luck.

I think I agree with Marc on this one. The IBB creates the necessity of a team.

Think of how much variance there is in who’s at the plate in a given situation. The IBB allows the other team to mange that variance. If the batting team’s roster isn’t suited to counter the move, then the better team will win more times than not. Disallowing this strategy would create much more variance and allow a poor team with one great hitter to be rewarded more than it should be over 162 games.

I like the comparison to the triangle-in-two defense. You’re taking away the other team’s best player but accepting added risk of another player beating you.

Of course, walking Harper worked this time, but it has been proven that walking a player every time is a VERY dumb strategy. I think Bill James took a team of average players, put them with Babe Ruth and ran simulations where Ruth was walked every time and ran some when he wasn’t. The teams with him walking every time broke scoring records.

I totally agree.
You are now putting a lot of pressure on the pitcher to get the next guy out, a guy who is probably not happy that the other team thinks they can. It worked in this case because Zimmerman is a mess, but it is not a long term winning strategy.

A player who is intentionally walked in every at bat would have the most valuable season in the history of baseball. The defensive team isn’t avoiding that player’s skills, they’re letting that player beat them by default. A guy who was so good that he was walked in all 650 of his plate appearances might be worth $100 million a year.

In this way, the intentional walk isn’t like any of the strategies mentioned in the article. It’s not Hack-A-Shaq, it’s fouling Steph Curry once he gets the ball, knowing he will hit to free throws because at least they didn’t score three points. It’s taking a knee instead of punting, because at least now it wasn’t returned for a touchdown.

And for the record, the Tigers walked Harper 3 times in the next game. I’m a Nats’ fan, and I think it sucks for the fans and the game to see the bat taken out of Harper’s hands. Having said that, I do have one quibble with you, Joe.

You said that the Hack-a-Shaq strategy exploits a player’s weakness, mainly the player being fouled’s inability to shoot free throws. But one could argue that walking Harper exploits a team’s weakness in a game where team matters a lot more than in the NBA. If the Nats don’t want Harper walked, protect him in the order.

That said, at this point the way Harper is swinging the bat, the Nats have no one that can protect him. As well as Murphy has hit so far, you’d still walk Harper to get to Murphy 95 times out of 100. Unless the Nats can get a Goldschmidt or a Trout or a Cabrera or someone of that magnitude, teams are still going to be better served to pitch to whoever rather than Harper.

Agreed, and Zimmerman hit two home runs last night. And, as you say, Murphy is not going to hit .390 for the year; eventually, teams would rather face him than Harper, especially given the disparity in power. Zimmerman is much more likely to hit a home run behind Harper than Murphy, at least based on their career numbers.

At any given time, a ball team is supposed to have nine guys playing who can hit. (Yes, I expect NL pitchers to be competent.) If an intentional walk is a “problem” because the next batter can’t hit for beans, I’d say I’d say the real problem is the team lacks balance. Tough luck.

Yes, I’d rather see Harper swing than just stand there. But, this fouling Shaq argument isn’t the analogy you want.

The analogy is Deion Sanders. You can read any number of articles citing Sanders’ greatness because quarterbacks would simply not throw to his side of the field. (He’s not the only CB this was said about, of course, as the same was often said about Nnamdi Asomugha, at least when he was in Oakland.) If a QB decided to not throw at him, no one complained that the fans were being robbed the chance to watch him get an interception, have an exciting return, and possibly score a touchdown.

Or what about great returners? If Devin Hester returns a kick for a touchdown, and the next kick is angled out of bounds, or to the other return man, do we complain that the kicking team is somehow going against the spirit of the game? If a team squib kicks it to an up-back who immediately falls on the ball, are they criticized because what they’re doing isn’t in the aesthetically pleasing? Wouldn’t the last minute of a two-point football game be more exciting if the offense *had* to run the ball into the defense, risking a fumble, rather than being able to simply kneel down?

I never see anyone complaining about all of these anti-competitive practices in the NFL ruining the aesthetics of the game.

What if the penalty for walking a hitter increased by a base each time you walked him? Walk Harper the first time, he goes to first. Second time, he goes to second. Third time, to third. Etc. As it goes along, somewhere the other team would have to take a chance on pitching to him rather than giving away runs, I’d think.

The problem is, you are changing the rules for a single hitter. Would your suggestion apply to anyone that gets walked? So, if a guy walks anyone twice, the hitter gets an extra base? I think it’s pointless. Just let them play. Eventually, walking Harper all the time will hurt the other team. I just don’t see the big deal here.

Why not limit the number of intentional walks a team can give per game (i.e. each team can only throw 2 intentional walks a game). This preserves the strategy of the intentional walk yet also keeps power hitters in the hunt….

Sorry Joie, you are dead wrong on this one. The law of unintended consequence will cause massive problems in the rest of the game in order to get rid of a minor annoyance. If you increase the “penalty” for a walk, you are incentivizing players in playing for a walk. This will result in them taking more close pitches instead of aggressively swinging. You will never see anyone swing at a 3-0 count. Why swing if you can get a double by resting the bat on your shoulder. Baseball flow works best when players are swinging, not when they are taking pitches. We should never change the rules to make taking pitchers a better strategy. Anything that makes walks more of a penalty is in effect increasing the incentive to not swing.

Sorry, but you didn’t read the proposal very carefully. They dealt with all walks, not just intentional walks. Besides, how do you tell an intentional walk from a any other 4 pitch walk? If there is a penalty with the catcher standing up and pointing, then they will stop that procedure, while still ensuring that none of the pitches are hittable.